Dramatically raising up of COVID-19 vaccination drive is key to tackle the crisis in India and extending the gap between the doses of Covishield is ‘reasonable Approach’, White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci told ANI in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
“When you are in a very difficult situation, the way you are in India, you have to try and figure out way to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as you can, so I believe that it is a reasonable approach to do”, Fauci said.
On Thursday, the government of India announced that the gap between the first and second doses of the Covishield COVID-19 vaccine has been extended to 12–16 weeks from the existing 6-8 weeks. This is for the second in three month that Covishield dosages intervals have been extended and this move has once again garnered criticism, as a cover-up for not having adequate amount of vaccine for the people in India. However, DrFauci said that this “increased interval” is beneficial even from the efficacy standpoint.
“The fact that you delay it that long, it is very unlikely that it would have a negative effect on the Efficacy of the vaccine. I would not refer to it as a cover up when you don’t have enough vaccine”, Fauci told ANI. India is most likely to call out Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus to be administered to citizens starting next week. With this, India will now have three vaccines to boost its mega vaccination drive which was recently opened for those above 18 years. When asked about the efficacy of the Sputnik V Vaccine, “I’ve heard about the Sputnik, is that it seems to be quite Efficacious at a high level of close to 90% or so,” Fauci responded.
